(i) Technical Field
The present invention relates to an electrostatic image developing toner, a method for producing the same, an electrostatic image developer, an image forming method and an image forming apparatus.
(ii) Related Art
General polycondensation methods for obtaining a polyester resin for an electrostatic image developing toner, particularly an amorphous polyester (hereinafter also referred to as a “non-crystalline polyester”), require time far exceeding 10 hours at a high temperature exceeding 200° C. with stirring by high power and under highly reduced pressure, because of its low monomer reactivity, and such a polyester resin is produced by production methods requiring high energy.
In the case of obtaining the polyester resin low in its monomer reactivity like this, a metal catalyst having stronger activity in a high-temperature region has generally been used.
As means for preparing an aqueous dispersion of the polyester resin, there can be exemplified techniques such as a solvent method, a phase inversion emulsification method and a high-temperature emulsification method. Further, of the means for preparing an aqueous dispersion of the polyester resin, as non-solvent means using no solvent, there are also techniques such as the high-temperature emulsification method and a neutralization emulsification method (hereinafter also referred to as an “alkali neutralization method) of adding a heated alkali solution to the polyester resin to neutralize terminals of the resin, thereby allowing the resin to have solubility in water, different from the above-mentioned methods.